Tebow’s Delivery is Still Too Long

The Tim Tebow buzz is already in full effect after he played in his first NFL game with the Denver Broncos — albeit a preseason exhibition — on Sunday night. While most are babbling about his hard-nosed touchdown run in the fourth quarter or the beautiful pass he threw deep down the sideline that was dropped, I noticed something a lot of people aren’t mentioning: Tebow’s delivery is still way too long for the NFL.

There’s no questioning Tebow’s desire to improve and he certainly should be considered one of the most coachable players in the NFL. He carried his teammates shoulder pads without hesitation and took the Friar Tuck haircut in stride. But Tebow nearly fumbled last night after being leveled by Cincinnati Bengals defensive back Jeromy Miles. Upon further review, it was determined that Tebow’s arm was going forward, but if the shortened delivery he worked so hard on in the off-season carried over onto the field he may have been able to get rid of the ball. Here’s the video of Tim Tebow getting jacked up in the preseason:

That big, loopy throwing motion you see in the video is a no-no at the NFL level. He obviously has underrated arm strength as we could see on a few other passes he threw Sunday night, but if he doesn’t shorten his delivery Broncos fans are going to get used to seeing a lot of fumbles and sacks with Tebow under center. Of course, it’s game one of the preseason and he still has plenty of time to work on it. That being said, Tebow and his camp preached about how he had changed his mechanics leading up to the draft and how he was making huge strides toward improving his delivery, and I just didn’t see it on this play and a few others in Sunday night’s game.